Guide to Greece, Vol. 2: Southern Greece - Softcover

Pausanias

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014044226X ISBN 13: 9780140442267

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1984

Synopsis

The second volume of the time-honored travel book about Greece, written 2,000 years ago

Written by a Greek traveller in the second century ad for a principally Roman audience, Pausanias' Guide to Greece is a comprehensive, extraordinarily literate and well-informed guidebook for tourists of the age. Concentrating on buildings, tombs and statues, it also describes in detail the myths, religious beliefs and historical background behind the monuments considered. In doing so, it preserves Greek legends, quotes classical literature and poetry that would otherwise have been lost, and offers a fascinating depiction of the glory of classical Greece immediately before its third-century decline. This, the second of two volumes, explores Southern Greece including Sparta, Arkadia, Bassae and the games at Olympia. An inspiration to travellers and writers across the ages, including Byron and Shelley, it remains one of the most influential of all travel books.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

About the Author

Pausanias was a Greek geographer and native of Lydia who explored Greece, Macedonia, Asia and Africa, before settling in Rome. Pausanias is believed to have lived in the second half of the second century A.D. and is thought by some historians to have been a doctor as well as a scholar. 

Peter Levi was a Jesuit priest and archaelogical correspondent for The Timesbefore his appointment as Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In addition to his translation of Pausanias he also published biographies of Tennyson, Edward Lear, Virgil, Horace and John Milton, and 22 volumes of poetry.

From the Back Cover

Pausanias was a Greek traveller and writer in the second century A.D. His Guide to Greece is an extremely comprehensive guide book for tourists, concentrating on buildings, tombs and statues and including a lot of information on the mythological, religious and historical background to the monuments described. It is so informative that it may be called the foundation of classical archaeology and this ancient Baedeker is still used as a guide to classical Greece.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 014044226X
• ISBN 13: 9780140442267
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Newberry John
• Number of pages: 560